Woeful shooting sinks Lakers

LOS ANGELES – Mike D'Antoni's pretty system got a reality check Tuesday night against an Indiana Pacers team leading the NBA in field-goal percentage defense.

And when the game needed to be decided by a pretty play, it was Pacers guard George Hill who blew past Pau Gasol and his tendinitis-stricken knees and lofted a layup in before Dwight Howard could come over to block it.

The Pacers won, 79-77, at Staples Center with Hill's basket falling with a 10th of a second left in the game — overcoming Kobe Bryant's tying 3-pointer with 24.5 seconds left.

Bryant scored 40 points when no one else in the game scored more than Hill's 19. But Bryant had 10 turnovers, one shy of his career high, and played 44 minutes despite flu-like symptoms earlier in the day.

Bryant shot 12 of 28 from the field, which was great compared to his teammates. The Lakers were at 28 percent late in the third quarter and trailed, 55-42. They rallied to trail by a point with seven minutes to play on a Bryant 3-pointer, but they fell back down to 29.2 percent down the stretch and behind on the scoreboard, 74-66.

"It was just awful," D'Antoni said. "Bad shooting."

The worst shooting game for any NBA team this season was Charlotte's 29.1 percent at Oklahoma City. Indiana came in allowing just 40.8 percent field-goal shooting to opponents this season.

Gasol returned home from his tumultuous times on the Lakers' just-completed trip and had the ignominy of having five shots blocked — making only two. He still played the last half of the fourth quarter and did contribute some free throws. He then passed up a 15-foot jumper and fed Howard for a dunk and 74-74 tie with 1:56 to play.

But the Lakers in the end just further positioned injured point guard Steve Nash well to play the role of savior with their inability to learn D'Antoni's stylish offensive ways quickly.

The Lakers wound up at 31.6 percent field-goal shooting for the game — the bench going 2 for 15 — and it didn't help that Howard (3 for 12 on free throws) and Metta World Peace missed four consecutive foul shots down the stretch.